Libya: Time of change, or oil discounts?

A Libyan elderly man waves the rebellion's flag as residents of Tripoli tour the destroyed Bab al-Aziziyah former headquarters of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi on September 1, 2011, as rebel forces freshly installed in Tripoli braced for possible attacks from the remnants of Kadhafi's supporters on the 42nd anniversary of his rise to power (AFP Photo / Mahmud Turkia)

As the “Friends of Libya” conference kicked off in Paris, debate is growing over whether world leaders are seeking to rob the country of its assets or lend a hand to the people of Libya in their struggle for democracy.

Oliver Miles, the UK’s ambassador to Libya in 1984, hopes that the international community will unfreeze the billions of dollars in frozen Libyan assets and take all measures to prevent a humanitarian disaster.

“Libya is a very unusual economy,” he said. “It depends entirely on oil production and the money coming from oil sales. Right now, there is no money coming from oil sales, because there are none of them, and they have no ability to touch their oil reserves. The second point about the Libyan economy is that a huge proportion of the workforce has been employed by the state. Right now, the state cannot pay them. If this situation continues, it will lead to a collapse.”

Miles strongly believes that the Libyan people now have a chance to build a decent new country.

“It is really time they had a break” from over 100 years of dominance, first by Mussolini and then by Gaddafi, he stated.

A far different stance was taken by Mohamed Hassan, a former Ethiopian diplomat. Hassan says that the “Friends of Libya” conference in Paris has nothing to do with the interests of the Libyan people.

“It is just a conference to redistribute the wealth of Libya. It is not self-determination of the Libyan people,” he told RT. “I don’t see any change for the Libyan people.”

The former diplomat hopes the Libyans will continue “resistance to NATO’s forces” to stop “the international robbery” of the country in what he called a general “re-colonization of Africa.”